


Afraid Of The Dark

by leonheart2012



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Comfort, Cuddles, Cute, M/M, Short & Sweet, just two guys being dudes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-06-30 10:36:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19851388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leonheart2012/pseuds/leonheart2012
Summary: After their first encounter with some daemons, Prompto is feeling afraid. Gladio takes the time to make him feel better. Can be read as a friendship fic.





	Afraid Of The Dark

The tent feels too small; tight, constricting, and the noises outside the tent aren’t helping in the slightest. Prompto pulls the blanket around him tighter, shivering. He’d never been afraid of the dark before. But then...

He tries to keep his eyes open, staring through the tent’s screen at the dwindling fire. He knows it’ll go out soon, if no one puts another log on it, and he’s tempted to rush out and do so, but he’s too afraid. Finally, as his eyes get too dry, he blinks, and stifles a whimper against his fist as light flashes behind his eyelids, purple and blue, yellow sparks flying as their swords slam ineffectually against the strange, rubbery flesh.

Forcing his eyes open again, he gasps and sits up, the echoes of Noct’s final cry in his ears. His glassy eyes staring at the ground as he slowly reaches into his pocket and pulls out the feather, which shatters in his grasp, magical light bursting from the glass and being absorbed into his chest.

He looks over to make sure that he really is there, still alive, still breathing, his chest rising and falling softly. Prompto exhales shakily and draws his knees up to his chest, willing away the tiredness that has settled into his bones. He doesn’t want to sleep; doesn’t want to remember the guttural cries of the monsters of the night. They hadn’t been ready for the daemon. Ignis had warned Noct not to stray too far from the lights of civilisation before they were ready, but he hadn’t listened, intent on going on the hunt and-

“Prom?” Gladio’s deep growl sounds from his left, right before a huge, warm hand presses into his lower back. “You alright?”

He looks over to see Gladio blinking blearily at him, eyes squinted, frown lines creasing his forehead. Prompto takes a shaky breath and plasters a smile onto his face. “Yeah, just finding it hard to get to sleep.” He doesn’t mention that he’s cold, or that he’s needed to pee for the last ten minutes or so, but is too terrified of moving to do anything about either discomfort.

Instead of reassuring him, Gladio seems to become more troubled by his answer, and he sits up and rubs one of his eyes with the back of his hand. “You sure you’re okay?”

Prompto sighs and places his head on his knees, curling them in even closer to his body. “Don’t you ever get scared of anything?”

Gladio’s eyes soften, and he sits up properly, pressing his side against Prompto’s. “Sure. I get scared of losing Noct, or you or Iggy. Sometimes, I get scared for what’s at the end of this road. Sometimes, I get scared that...I’ll never find anyone to share my life with, or that I’ll miss out on some things. But then I remind myself that what I have now is worth taking the time to cherish. I shouldn’t worry about the future when I have everything I could ever want right now.”

“Right, but, like...heights? Or...spiders?”

“Oh. Hmm. When I was younger, I was terrified of snakes. Iris constantly teased me about it. But...I suppose I just got over that fear. I think it was Cor. When he told me about my duty to Noct. I decided...I didn’t have time for fear anymore.”

“If only it were that easy.” Prompto says quietly, gazing out at the deep black of the night. He startles when Gladio’s arm comes around his shoulders and pulls him tight against his chest in a rare show of affection.

“You scared of the daemons?” His voice rumbles around in his chest like rocks grinding against each other, and it’s such a comforting sound that Prompto finds he can finally close his eyes for a few moments.

“Yeah.” He whispers, trying to will Gladio’s voice back into existence, but the muscled man has fallen into a contemplative silence. Swallowing, Prompto tilts his head up from where it rests on Gladio’s chest and blinks at his strong chin. “Gladdy?” His response is a deep hum. “Would you mind...reading to me? Out loud?”

He hesitates. “It’d wake the others.”

“Just...I need to hear your voice. Please?” He pulls back and looks at Gladio with his best puppy-dog eyes, and they must be better than he thought, because Gladio blushes and nods.

Gladio reaches over to his pack and fishes out his flashlight and his book, but at the shifting, Prompto is reminded of how much he needs to pee. He places a hand on Gladio’s arm.

“Um...I need to...” His eyes dart to the opening of the tent, and he squirms in place.

The muscular man follows his gaze with a confused frown, glancing between the young blonde and the door of the tent a few times before it finally clicks. “It’s just a pee, right?”

Prompto nods, his cheeks flaming.

“Well, you could probably just go off the side of the rock, right? Still inside the circle of firelight?”

“But I...” He flushes again, all too aware that he sounds like a kid, asking for his mother to come to the toilet with him because he’s too scared, but he _is_ too scared. The fear is coiling in his gut, making his need to go so much more urgent, and finally, Gladio caves.

“Alright. I’ll come with you.”

In his haste to pee, he forgets how cold it is in the night air, and shivers violently as he makes his way to the edge of the protected stone circle, takes his cock out and starts to pee. Warm arms wrap around his shoulders, and hot breath ghosts over his right ear.

“It’s alright, it’s just me.” Gladio says softly, pressing his body closer. “You were shaking like a leaf.” He holds Prompto until he’s done, and then walks back to the tent with him, wrapping him back up in the blankets. “Why don’t you have any warmer clothes?” He asks, as he sees that Prompto’s still shivering.

“I guess I just...” He bites his lip and looks away. “Honestly? I never had...muscles...before. I mean, I _had_ them, obviously, but not like these. When they were outfitting me for the trip, and I saw them on display like that, I guess it went to my head. I was...for the first time, I actually _liked_ looking in the mirror.” He bites his lip again. “Pass me my phone?”

Gladio rummages around for a few seconds before coming back with Prompto’s phone, easily recogniseable by the chocobo sticker on the back.

Thumbing in his passcode, he navigates to his photos and scrolls through until he finds the first ones he’d ever saved to it – the progress photos he’d taken while getting fit. After a slight hesitation, he passes the phone over to Gladio, who gives a low whistle.

“You wore glasses?”

It’s not the question he had dreaded, and it catches him off guard. “Uh...yeah.”

Gladio goes silent as he scrolls through the photos, watching Prompto get thinner and thinner. “You looked really cute with your glasses.” He says finally. “And you did a really good job. It must have been a lot of work.”

Prompto flushes. “Thanks.” He says, taking his phone back. Every now and then, he’ll look back at the pictures, if he needs to feel better, or if he needs to remind himself to stop loving Ignis’ cooking too much.

Picking up his book, Gladio lies down next to Prompto and switches the light on, flipping open the pages until he finds his place. He startles a little when Prompto lays his head on his chest.

Flushing, Prompto looks up and smiles shakily. “This okay?”

For some reason, it feels so much more intimate than anything they’ve ever done before, even the hug they’d shared outside just minutes earlier. With pink cheeks, Gladio nods. “Yeah, sure.” His voice sounds hoarse, so he clears his throat quietly and turns back to his book. Slowly, he starts murmuring the words printed on the page, somehow knowing that Prompto’s not listening to them, but the sounds they make as they start to form in his chest.

Beneath the rumble of Gladio’s voice is the steady beat of his heart, and under that, just faintly, the rush of Gladio’s breath as it helps form the words he’s whispering. Prompto closes his eyes and listens to the sounds mingling under his ear. Rumble, thump, whoosh, rumble, thump, whoosh. At some point, Gladio's hand comes up to stroke his hair, and then falls over his ear, pressing him further into his chest, but also blocking out the rest of the noises of the night. Prompto's eyes flutter closed, and his breathing evens out. He’s not sure when he falls asleep, but the next thing he knows, he’s in a dream land, the steady rumble of Gladio’s voice filtering through and scaring away the daemons, bringing the sunlight back, along with chocobos and moogles and tiny white rabbits with twitching noses.


End file.
